Episode 18 - Karen Ristevski

0:16 Welcome everyone, to another episode of Two Crime Besties.

0:19 Hey Emma, how you going? I am fantastic, Meg.

0:23 I am off the back of a fairly impromptu trip to Bali with some

0:29 really gorgeous friends of ours and feeling relaxed and lovely.

0:35 Yeah, nice. And sure, we've had enough

0:37 cocktails to last year for a little bit longer.

0:39 Might have thank you very much for taking on that easy street

0:43 update in one of our recent episodes because that happened

0:46 while I was away so you did a great job.

0:49 Thank you thank you taking one for the team but I actually

0:52 think there's another easy straight update today.

0:55 Do you wanna? Do you wanna give?

0:56 Us the the background on what's been happening.

0:58 There's been a little bit more coming out just slowly about

1:01 that because now obviously he's been arrested and he's sitting

1:05 in jail in, in Rome that I think I guess people are just coming

1:08 forward, you know, who know him of when he was living in

1:11 Australia and that sort of thing.

1:12 So finding out a little bit more information about who he was

1:13 because his name's been released and now that's gone off the top

1:16 of my head where his name is, but he's an interesting

1:19 character in this was, as we said in the episode, he was in

1:24 the file all along. So he was a 17 year.

1:27 Old love that for Ron. Oh, Ron has it.

1:30 All the time. He's all over that stuff.

1:32 Yeah, yeah. But yeah, he was 17 at the time

1:35 and he was attending Collingwood College, which is the school

1:39 where Susan Bartlett was a teacher at, teaching arts and

1:43 crafts. So there is a connection there

1:45 where they may have known each other.

1:47 So that's curious. Well, that's true.

1:50 His. So is that his?

1:51 Brother came out to say that. I.

1:54 Think so. I think so.

1:55 But now his brothers like, come out again to say like, oh,

1:59 actually I got it wrong. He wasn't there.

2:01 But although other people have then also come out to say he was

2:04 there anyway, his name is Perry Crumbles.

2:08 There we go. That's it.

2:09 Yeah. I'm sorry if I said that wrong.

2:11 No, yeah, you can jump online. You can find like there's now

2:13 like photos been released to him and stuff so you can see what he

2:15 looks like. But yeah, so he's, so he had, he

2:19 was pulled over on the night, which I find interesting is

2:22 obviously driving, which I was. I don't know whether he was

2:24 legally driving or not at 17. That's I don't know if you were

2:28 a layer to get your license back.

2:30 Yeah, I don't know. But he was driving pulled over

2:33 and he had the knife in the boot, which he told police at

2:36 the time he just was, he had, he saw it on the at the railway

2:40 station and so he picked it up. So the knife was tested and to

2:45 be found to be the knife involved.

2:49 However, they've seemed to have just believed that story, that

2:52 he's picked it up and it's not related to him.

2:54 Because when we were doing our research for this, yeah, we

2:58 believe the knife was found at a train station.

3:00 Yeah. So that's who it was found by.

3:05 So yeah, I've put a few things together since in terms of that.

3:08 And that seems to be, yeah. So to me, that seems curious as

3:11 to why that wasn't followed up further at the time.

3:15 Mm hmm. But anyway.

3:16 Although maybe we just didn't know and they maybe they

3:19 couldn't pin anything on him at the time.

3:21 Like we don't know the fact that he was interviewed.

3:24 OK, yes, he had the murder weapon in his car.

3:26 Yeah. Surely the police would be

3:28 extremely suspicious of that. Whether they could?

3:31 Prove anything? Well, obviously they weren't

3:34 able to prove anything further to that at that point.

3:37 So until the DNA evidence base basically was being followed

3:41 through, they would have had their list of 130 odd suspects

3:45 that they were wedding out slowly.

3:48 And I don't think that was being done in a hurry by any means.

3:50 So they were wedding those out. Obviously, those top sort of

3:53 eight that we mentioned in our episode were ruled out quite

3:56 quickly through that DNA evidence and he was still on

4:00 their list and they were getting to him, but he skipped the

4:03 country and so therefore wasn't tested.

4:06 But they have since tested a family member and it was a

4:10 match. So interesting.

4:14 Obviously they still would want to do a direct test on him.

4:17 Yeah, to confirm that for sure. But obviously.

4:20 But this was enough to for them to Co that, yeah, they need to

4:23 be looking into this guy. Yeah.

4:24 But they had to keep it all so quiet because they needed him to

4:27 move out of Greece to be able to arrest.

4:29 Him just waiting. Yeah, yeah.

4:31 So, yeah. I mean, sometimes you think, you

4:33 know, the cops are doing nothing and they're terrible at their

4:35 job, whatever. But I think we have to have that

4:36 understanding that sometimes they do just need to keep quiet

4:39 to do their job. So.

4:40 And we don't know every, we don't know everything.

4:41 No. Yeah.

4:43 So good on Victoria poll. Yeah.

4:45 And thankfully it sounds like, I mean, look, everything will come

4:49 out as it comes out. But yeah, they've got somebody

4:53 who they, you know, very strongly suspect was involved in

4:56 this crime. And we're just waiting now for

4:58 extradition to Victoria. So he's still in.

5:01 Rome is a really long process. It could be six months or more

5:04 before we actually get him out of Rome at this point because of

5:07 the, there's a quite a huge appeal process that occurs.

5:11 So once we, it has to get to a quite a few levels of appeals

5:15 which he'll, he'll appeal all of them 'cause he's currently

5:17 saying he's got nothing to do with this.

5:19 So he will appeal at all levels they believe.

5:22 So it could be a long time before we see anything and have

5:25 him here in Australia to then have a trial.

5:27 Yeah, but well, we'll just keep you updated as we find.

5:31 Yeah, we'll. Keep doing updates as we as we

5:34 learn more information about the case.

5:36 The other one I wanted to bring up.

5:37 Actually, before we start today's case.

5:39 Was the Menendez. Brother.

5:42 Have you been watching the new Netflix series?

5:44 I started it not last night, but the night before.

5:47 Yeah, right. So I don't know about you, but I

5:50 find when we're researching a case, I really need to focus on

5:54 that one case. Otherwise other things get in my

5:57 head and then I get facts. Ideas muddled.

6:01 Up yeah, yeah. So anyway, Peter and I would

6:04 just. Sort of.

6:06 Looking for something to watch the other night together and I'm

6:08 like, oh, let's let's give it a go because you've spoken to me

6:11 about it. Tell.

6:12 Me. Tell us your take on the

6:14 interpretation. So this is a recently released,

6:17 it's called Monsters on Netflix. It's definitely brought the

6:21 Menendez case to a lot more people.

6:24 And I've had, I've actually had several work colleagues mention

6:27 to me, Oh my God, I listened to your case.

6:30 Yeah. And then I've watched Monsters

6:32 and wow, it's a really different.

6:35 Really different taste on it so tell.

6:37 Tell me what you think, knowing that now that yeah, you've

6:40 watched the whole thing. Yeah, I, I wasn't a fan of the

6:43 Netflix series. And I look, The thing is, I

6:45 think you've got to remember it's a dramatisation.

6:47 It isn't like completely and utterly factual.

6:49 Yeah. Because watching it, it did

6:51 frustrate me because of a lot of the facts that I knew of the

6:54 case. Yeah.

6:55 Were altered in that show. It's I would had a sort of a

6:59 take on it where I was like, oh, OK, maybe they're playing it out

7:02 of like they're presenting it in a way of like how people could

7:05 have seen it and then flipping it.

7:06 And I know this is actually how they, their perception of it.

7:11 Interesting kind of way to film this show, I think.

7:14 But it still didn't work for me. I don't know.

7:17 It didn't. Yeah.

7:18 I don't know. I think because I have, I have a

7:21 degree of empathy for them. And that show wants you to think

7:26 they're monsters. And I, I can't come at them

7:30 being pure monsters because of what they were they, they was

7:35 inflicted upon them. Yeah, so the.

7:37 Series basically implies that that maybe didn't happen.

7:40 Yeah. And I mean, I'm getting that

7:42 vibe already. As I said, I haven't watched

7:44 right through to the end yet, but that's gross.

7:48 To me because. There's so much evidence to

7:51 support the fact, and we talk about this in our episode.

7:53 If you haven't listened to our episode on the Menendez

7:55 brothers, please go back and have a listen because yeah, we

7:58 make our feelings very much known.

8:01 You mentioned when we were chatting about it the other day

8:03 that there's another documentary coming out there.

8:05 Is another documentary coming out where Eric Menendez,

8:07 particularly, I'm not so sure of Lyle what in what he's had

8:10 involvement in it, but particularly Eric has had some

8:14 input into that documentary. OK, where they interview him or

8:17 whether he's just given advice on the background.

8:19 I don't know yet. It hasn't 'cause it hasn't been

8:21 released, OK. But there is another one coming

8:23 out very soon and I think that that would could be a more

8:25 factual. So it depends on what you're

8:26 looking for. Look, I really enjoyed this.

8:28 So this was also made by the same people who did the Dharma

8:31 one. Oh, yeah.

8:32 And I really liked that, Yeah. That was good.

8:34 But I just wonder whether because I had researched

8:38 Menendez Brothers so heavily and had such an understanding of it

8:43 that it it just influenced my opinion on it.

8:46 I've heard other people also come to me and kind of get

8:49 generally like it. Like so I don't biased.

8:51 I don't know. But listen to our podcast maybe

8:54 if you want the facts of what the case actually, you know,

8:58 ensured. Yeah, yeah.

9:01 And then you can make your own judgement.

9:02 But I guess, I guess it's a reminder to watch everything

9:04 quite critically. Like everybody has their own

9:09 agenda. And I mean, even when we're

9:12 researching things like I, I know you're the same.

9:15 We just, we tend to form an opinion, which we're very sort

9:19 of vocal about when we're talking through the episodes.

9:22 I think you guys have an idea of what we think at the end of the

9:25 day, but everyone's entitled to their own opinions and we're

9:30 super curious to hear what what everyone has to say.

9:33 Yeah, no, I'd love to hear. I mean, opposing thoughts on it

9:36 and, you know, try and change our minds and our opinions.

9:39 That's it. Yeah.

9:40 I mean, I'm very careful with my research in that generally, I

9:43 mean, not that I'm gonna get everything right, but I don't

9:45 generally take things as fact until I've seen it in a number

9:47 of places, you know, that sort of stuff.

9:49 And checking reputable sources. Yeah.

9:53 Which is why I think when I watched it, I was like, I don't.

9:56 I think so, yeah. There's even watching the

9:59 episodes that I have so far, there's a few things I'm like,

10:01 well, I know that didn't happen and I know that happened that

10:03 way and. Yeah.

10:04 Yeah, so I guess they've taken some creative license to make it

10:07 more entertaining or? Whatever.

10:09 That definitely made the two boys unappealing.

10:13 Yeah. And yeah, I don't know.

10:15 I don't. I don't know if that's a

10:16 positive or negative thing, because at the end of the day,

10:18 they did do what they did. Yep, but context is a lot.

10:23 Absolutely. Especially in this or in any

10:25 case. Yeah, especially in this case.

10:28 Yeah, all. Right.

10:29 Yes, Interesting. Should we get into today's case

10:32 then? Let's do that.

10:33 So this one I think we sort of thought wasn't gonna be a big

10:35 one until you get into it and sort of start researching it and

10:38 go. There's actually a fair bit

10:39 here. So yeah.

10:41 So today we're gonna talk about Karen Ristevski.

10:44 So Karen Ristevski was from Avondale Heights in just western

10:49 suburbs of Melbourne, which again is in our sort of local

10:53 ish to us, on the other side of town to us.

10:56 So this case is fairly recent. So it was very, it's very fresh

11:00 in our minds. I know I remember a lot of this

11:02 occurring in real time. So, yeah, but The thing is now

11:06 researching, it's like you sort of get a different perspective,

11:09 I guess, of what you saw from the news, you know, four or five

11:12 years ago when this was occurring, longer than that now,

11:14 actually more like 8 years ago, yeah.

11:16 So yeah, we'll get into it, get into it.

11:20 Now, before before we get into it, Oh yeah, we need to discuss

11:25 some pronunciations. Oh, yeah, sorry.

11:28 Karen's husband, who is a pivotal character in this story.

11:34 So his name, his name is, well, we we were talking about the the

11:40 pronunciation of his name. We've decided to call him

11:43 throughout this podcast, Boris. His name is actually Borche.

11:49 We've also heard on different publications in in different

11:52 podcasts when we've been researching this, people calling

11:55 him boss. Yeah, there is a home video in

11:58 which he refers to himself as Boris.

12:01 And that's why we've decided to go down that path.

12:04 A lot of the more reputable news agencies who've also covered

12:09 this story also call him Boris. So that's what we're doing.

12:13 But it's probably worth noting that his name is actually BORCE,

12:19 and probably pronounced Borce. You know, traditionally.

12:24 Dare say he's Australianized it, yeah.

12:26 And gone with Boris, as you know.

12:28 Yeah, as we tend to do here in here in Australia, yeah.

12:31 So. Boris and Karen So Karen was

12:35 born in Wellington in New Zealand on the 7th of Feb 1969.

12:42 Boris and Karen had a daughter together named Sarah.

12:47 There is a lot of information about Sarah out on the Internet.

12:51 She's been interviewed by a very prominent program in Australia,

12:58 60 Minutes. It's a very interesting

13:01 interview and we are going to talk about that.

13:03 A lot today. Yeah, but definitely go and have

13:06 a watch because it really informs what, you know, a lot of

13:10 the opinions that we've had for the episode today.

13:13 Boris actually has a son from a previous relationship as well,

13:18 Anthony. He lived with Karen, Boris and

13:23 Sarah during his teen years, but in his 20s and at the time of

13:29 Karen's disappearance and subsequent like known murder, he

13:34 wasn't living with the family at the time.

13:36 And again, we will get into his involvement in this sort of

13:40 later on down the track. Yeah.

13:42 So Karen went missing from their beautiful Avondale Heights home

13:48 on the 29th of June in 2016. It was a Wednesday morning,

13:53 nothing sort of out of the ordinary according to everybody

13:56 around her. She left home at 10:00 in the

14:00 morning after what Boris describes as an argument over

14:05 money. So Karen and I guess did Boris

14:09 Co own that that the clothing business?

14:13 I believe so. I believe it was family business

14:15 there. Yeah, he he was in.

14:16 On it, did he? Work at all in that business.

14:20 I got a vibe that potentially he may have maybe had a little bit

14:25 of to do with the books, maybe on an odd occasion, but.

14:29 OK, well, he was certainly not all that happy according this is

14:33 all According to him at this point.

14:35 He wasn't happy that the day's takings from the day before were

14:39 only $850 and it wasn't enough to sort of make ends meet for

14:43 the business, which, so they had a clothing store called Bella

14:48 Blue at was at Water Gardens Shopping Centre.

14:51 Yeah, they had also within the previous months, they had a

14:55 second site that they'd actually closed down at a different

14:58 shopping centre in Melbourne. So obviously the business wasn't

15:01 going all that. Yeah.

15:03 Well, yeah, there was a fair bit of debt attached to the

15:06 business. Yeah, I believe the business

15:08 itself had a roughly $600,000 debt and.

15:13 As a couple. They had around $1,000,000 debt.

15:17 Is that is that? 1.11.2 million, OK, including a

15:20 mortgage, some credit card debt, yeah.

15:22 So there's a significant amount of money owed.

15:25 Yeah. And so look, I can understand if

15:29 you're owning your own business, that's a financially that's a

15:33 tough, that's a really tough gig.

15:35 And if you're in that amount of debt, absolutely, you'd be

15:38 watching the books every single day.

15:40 Yeah, according to Boris, he's had this argument that, you

15:42 know, there's only been $850 worth of takings.

15:46 I believe Water Gardens Shopping Center had actually like they,

15:53 they'd been like, looking for their money.

15:55 So things were really tight. Hadn't paid rent.

15:59 Hadn't paid rent or they would. They would.

16:00 Definitely owing rent. And so, yeah, Boris is saying

16:06 they've had an argument about the previous day's takings.

16:11 Now all mind you, Sarah was home this morning previous to the

16:16 argument. Yeah, but Boris was just

16:19 watching TV on the couch while Karen was in the study trying to

16:24 sort of work on the books and figure out what to do.

16:26 I think she was actually looking at potentially was she looking

16:31 at another line of clothing? I.

16:32 Think she's looking at some designs and stuff and what

16:34 colours she might order of certain things for the for the

16:37 store. Yeah, right.

16:38 So she's asked. Sarah's opinion on colours or

16:40 something and. Right.

16:41 So she's looking to try and I don't know further the business

16:45 in some way obviously. Doing some buying or whatever.

16:47 So yeah, yeah, add to the the range or something in the store.

16:51 Yep. Yep.

16:52 So she's. Yeah, according to Boris,

16:55 they've had this argument and she's left the house.

16:58 Which was so Sarah had already Sarah left for she was doing in

17:02 some an internship or something. Yes, she was.

17:05 She was a graphic. I think now she's a graphic

17:07 designer. So I believe she was doing an

17:09 internship. She just.

17:10 Turned 21 a few weeks prior and had left the morning herself to

17:15 go off to do this little, this bit of a job that she was doing.

17:17 So she wasn't home. I think she might have left sort

17:19 of, you know, 8:30-ish in the morning or something.

17:23 And then so this is all sort of, according to Boris, has taken

17:25 part. Now this argument has has taken

17:28 place after Sarah has left. Yeah.

17:31 Yeah. So they've had their argument.

17:32 And According to him, she's then left the house to cool down

17:35 after an argument. And then as the days progressed,

17:39 Sarah has been trying to contact her just as she does.

17:42 She's very close with her mum and her dad and there has been

17:46 no response from Karen throughout the day from text

17:49 messages or phone calls that Sarah has made.

17:52 Obviously she's gotten home from her day's work as well and still

17:56 and mum's not home. Boris has explained to her mum's

17:59 gone out for a walk to cool off. We had a bit of an argument have

18:02 she hasn't come back but she's fine and they've headed out for

18:05 the evening for dinner at his parents house I believe.

18:08 Yeah, that's right. Yeah, so they've headed there

18:10 for the evening. Again, no sign of Karen when

18:13 they come home from dinner and they head off to bed with still

18:17 no sight. Yeah, so Sarah describes this as

18:21 like she was sort of bit taken aback, like her mum and dad had

18:27 had arguments before and her mum had gone for a walk or gone for

18:30 a coffee or, you know, just sort of left the house to cool off a

18:33 little bit, but had never been gone for this long.

18:36 And I think Boris kind of dismissed any, you know, any

18:42 concerns that Sarah had basically saying, yeah, she'll

18:45 be right. She'll, I'm sure she'll, she's

18:47 just with a friend or whatever. She'll probably.

18:49 Stay in a friend's house or something?

18:50 Yeah, but yeah. But that wasn't, wasn't that,

18:53 that had never happened before. She'd always come home and, you

18:57 know, at least by the time it was time for bed, I think even

19:00 even sooner, generally speaking. Yeah.

19:02 So Sarah was quite concerned. Now she's a 21 year old woman,

19:06 but she's still living in the home of her mum and dad.

19:08 So that's that's a difficult position for an adult child to

19:14 be in. You trust your.

19:15 Dad, he was the one there with her, you know, when she's got

19:17 left the house, I guess. But the fact.

19:19 That she hadn't been able to contact her mum all day, that'd

19:21 be that'd definitely raise some suspicion.

19:23 Yeah, for sure. I yeah.

19:25 But yeah, I think the type of person Boris was is.

19:29 I think you're right, would be pretty overbearing and trying to

19:32 be hard to argue against it for sure.

19:35 Yeah, so they've gone to bed and then the next morning, obviously

19:38 Karen hasn't returned to the house and they've decided to go

19:43 to Avondale Heights Police station to report her missing.

19:48 Mm hmm. According to Sarah, the

19:52 constable who took the initial report was very dismissive.

19:57 She said he basically said that, oh, she's probably at the

20:02 pokies, just give it a couple more hours and wait until she

20:05 comes home. Yeah, Sarah and Boris see why

20:12 they wouldn't say if. If I was reporting my husband

20:15 missing and a police officer said that to me, I'd be like,

20:18 well, no, he literally never goes to the pokies.

20:20 No, you need to listen to me. This.

20:22 Is so out of character for him. Yeah, but they didn't.

20:25 Well, Boris certainly didn't do that and I guess Sarah would

20:28 have taken the lead from. Boris at that point.

20:31 Yeah, and I think, I mean, it's been latched onto for Boris in

20:33 terms of like, oh, they're dismissing us there 'cause he,

20:36 he apparently then said, you know, come back at midday if she

20:38 still hasn't been, you know, heard from.

20:42 So I do think that there's a bit of the, the police sort of

20:45 playing it a little bit to see what's the reaction from people

20:47 if we play, if we play it cool. I mean cops and, you know,

20:51 notoriously known for keeping their cool in situations and

20:53 making sure that their their demeanour is kept low and then

20:56 the reaction of other people is what they watch for.

21:00 That's actually a really good point.

21:02 Yeah, so I think if if they had stood there and said no, no, no,

21:05 she doesn't do the pokies, this is not OK.

21:07 We need, we need help. Now.

21:09 I do think that maybe something more would have happened.

21:11 I'd be surprised if it wouldn't have.

21:13 That would be really shit ass. And if that's the case, then you

21:16 know, that's really poor on that police.

21:17 Officer, they kind of just went, oh, OK, we'll come back in.

21:20 Yeah, because I think that would have been Boris leading that.

21:23 And he would have, I mean, clearly he didn't really want

21:25 her being looked for, you know. So I think he would have walked

21:29 out of there going, Oh yeah, shit cops, you know, and that's

21:32 he's, he's used all of that to his advantage then with Sarah.

21:34 Yeah, that's, that's an interesting take and I think

21:37 absolutely valid. Like, yeah, it's, it's just just

21:42 horrible. I mean, he was playing the

21:44 concerned husband right from the get go.

21:46 Wasn't he? Yeah, yes, playing.

21:48 The interesting thing is, at this point, when they've gone to

21:51 the police, they hadn't contacted any of Karen's

21:53 friends. No, he hadn't run.

21:55 Anybody to find if she was staying the night with, you

21:58 know, where she'd stayed the night?

21:59 None. That he had not made a single

22:01 phone call. So it wasn't until midday when

22:03 they did go back to the police station that, yeah, that's when

22:06 the cops did kick into gear and people and friends were

22:09 contacted and told or ask the question, have you seen Karen?

22:13 Because yeah, Boris hadn't done any of that private prior to

22:16 that. I mean, which again, she's a 21

22:18 year old woman. Wouldn't you think she could

22:19 even jump on the phone to an auntie or a friend or something

22:21 and say, hey, have you seen mum? Because I can't get hold of her,

22:25 which I find all very interesting.

22:28 It absolutely is, yeah. We will get further into why we

22:33 think that is probably a little bit later on in the episode.

22:36 But Needless to say, that didn't happen.

22:40 And the police were the first ones to contact close friends

22:45 and family at that point when they've gone back at midday and

22:49 been like, well, she still hasn't shown up.

22:51 Yeah, they've contacted friends and family, none of whom had

22:54 seen her or heard from her. No.

22:58 What had she taken? Supposedly taken with her when

23:02 she went for this walk. Yeah, so she's taken supposedly

23:05 her phone and her handbag. Was there anything else that she

23:08 took with? Her no, I think that was.

23:09 It. But still, I mean, who takes the

23:11 handbag to go for a walk to cool down?

23:13 I mean, I can take the phone, definitely.

23:14 Yeah, yeah. They lived in Avondale Heights

23:18 and their house it was it's a stunning house.

23:20 It was worth 1.1 million Australian dollars, so really

23:24 nice family home. It backed onto the Maribyrnong

23:28 River and there were walking tracks all along there, so you

23:33 would think if she was gonna go for a walk to cool off after an

23:35 argument, she'd go for a wanderer.

23:37 Along the river, you know, like. But you wouldn't.

23:39 I wouldn't take my handbag for a wanderer.

23:41 We've got a Creek out the back of our house.

23:43 Yeah, I might. Well, I I do.

23:45 I take my phone and my dog. Yeah, exactly.

23:48 Most important thing, yeah. And.

23:50 That's it. A poop bag?

23:52 Yeah. Not for me.

23:53 I knew you'd go there. So yeah, it's just.

23:58 Really bizarre that like, you know, he, I don't know.

24:03 Yeah, right from the get go. There's so many red flags that

24:06 make me go. Absolutely, and I do think the

24:09 cops were onto it pretty quickly to be honest, that there was

24:12 more to this. I think the police have later

24:14 come out to say that they suspected Boris's involvement

24:17 from very early on. Yeah.

24:19 And so he was definitely watched under that sort of lens for a

24:24 very long time. Yeah.

24:26 Yeah, yeah. I think it was within the first

24:28 few days even of the of her being reported missing that they

24:31 put a device on his vehicle, which unfortunately either they

24:36 don't really know whether he took it off or whether it fell

24:38 off, but they query whether which one.

24:40 Yeah, yeah. So they were, they were

24:42 definitely keeping an eye on him for sure of what his his

24:45 movement was and what was going on with him because they did

24:48 suspect something. Yeah, I feel like there was

24:50 another tactic that was used. They put Boris and Sarah in

24:54 front of the media a couple of days after after Karen was.

24:58 Reported Yeah, on July 4th, yeah.

25:00 And so this was the first press conference that the family kind

25:04 of was involved with. It was at the front of the

25:06 Avondale Heights police station. And his behaviour, like, you can

25:11 again, go on YouTube and you can see the whole press conference.

25:15 His behaviour is bizarre. Sarah is clearly incredibly

25:21 distressed. Like, it's actually quite

25:23 confronting to watch because you can easily put yourself in her

25:26 shoes. Not that we will hopefully ever

25:29 know what that feels like. Yeah.

25:31 But you can see the absolute agony in her and the distress in

25:35 her. Yeah.

25:37 And the perceived distress in Boris.

25:41 Yeah, he's interesting, that's for damn sure.

25:44 He's got this like really gruff look on his face, like it's not,

25:48 it's not. There's nothing soft about him.

25:50 There's nothing. It's just like, it's like he

25:53 looks angry. Actually, he looks angry.

25:55 Police are kind of, as we said, are quite suspicious and they.

25:58 Interviewed him about July 8th, I think it was actually pulled

26:01 him in for his first formal interview in what he, yeah, knew

26:06 of the situation, which obviously at that point he was,

26:09 he denied any, you know, any wrongdoing other than just just

26:13 he kept actually going back over at that point even about sort of

26:16 dismissing that it wasn't their finances were fine.

26:19 Even though they had an argument.

26:21 He kept really reiterating this fact around like, you know,

26:23 yeah, but we're not in a, you know, in a dire situation with

26:26 their finances and was like trying to, like, justify that

26:29 where the cops were quite taken aback by that because there

26:32 wasn't really no concern in that interview around where Karen

26:35 was. It was more about justifying

26:37 that you know that their finances aren't as bad as it

26:39 sounds. And.

26:40 Like if you're in $1.1 million of debt that you can't finance

26:44 on a monthly basis, you're in trouble.

26:47 Yeah. Like, and he, OK, Boris was not

26:51 really working at the time. He had lot of odd jobs.

26:54 He was an Uber driver for a bit. He did like construction

27:00 labouring like as in like. Just here and there like.

27:04 There was, there was a consistent.

27:05 No, no. So to me, if you're in a family

27:07 situation where you've got a business that's running that you

27:09 know, needs some help to get going properly, which isn't

27:13 going great, and then what? What's he doing sitting around

27:16 watching TV? Like why isn't he working?

27:17 Why isn't he going out and paying the mortgage so that the

27:20 business can pay for itself rather than the money out of the

27:23 business having to pay for the mortgage as well as all the

27:26 other debt and have, they're living a pretty huge lifestyle

27:29 in that, you know, well. They had really expensive cars,

27:32 like Karen's car was a Mercedes, like a really like sort of later

27:36 model Mercedes. And yeah, they they were

27:39 certainly portraying a certain image out there.

27:42 Yeah, I mean, there's no one. I mean, we're talking here

27:45 20/16/2017 Even then trying to live off with one wage for a

27:48 family, you know, it's pretty difficult I mean, I can't

27:51 imagine sitting there going oh it's sweet.

27:53 The wife's business is going to pay for all of us to live this

27:55 life business the life of. $600,000 in debt.

27:58 Yeah, and I, I can't. You'd hope, you'd hope that

28:02 eventually that might be the case, but you can't just pretend

28:05 like that's happening before it's actually happening.

28:08 But. They're hard work like you know

28:09 you. You've got to put in what you

28:10 know. You get out of it what's.

28:11 A7 day a week, like she was working in retail in a major

28:15 shopping centre. Yeah, that side of town like

28:18 that, that's, that's hard. Yeah, yeah.

28:22 That's a lot of hours. That's a lot of people.

28:24 Yeah, but I guess the biggest crack really showed for Boris at

28:29 a second. Oh God, I can't speak press

28:34 conference, conference in front of the media then on July 14th.

28:39 So this is really interesting. So Patricia Gray, who was

28:42 Karen's aunt, came forward. And so she was the one out the

28:45 front speaking. And Boris and Sarah were

28:47 standing behind her during this one.

28:50 And so the idea was to, again, just put that call out, you

28:53 know, if anyone knows anything or said anything, come forward,

28:56 You know, And immediately a Channel 7 reporter asked the

29:01 question, Boris, did you kill your wife?

29:06 And the reaction from him was pretty awful.

29:10 I mean he, he, they shut it down.

29:12 Very quickly well, he he the look on his face is really

29:15 interesting because he kind of looks stunned yes and then he is

29:20 like his mouth looks like like like puckers and the the press

29:29 conference gets immediately shut down and it's.

29:31 But even like the auntie's reaction, you can to me a sense

29:34 there's a little bit of that she's maybe on the cusp of

29:37 thinking that, yeah, Boris is part.

29:41 Of kind of not been thinking. It totally yeah, because you can

29:44 sense she even says like she goes oh, I think that's an

29:47 inappropriate question, but her reaction isn't no, no, no, no,

29:51 like it's not an immediate defence.

29:53 Do you know what I mean? It was a more of a oh, I've.

29:57 Been prepped on how to answer. This yeah, yeah.

30:00 And I wanna say get onto it like yeah, I feel like that.

30:04 She was definitely thinking already.

30:06 Look. You know, I guess the police

30:09 investigate those closest to missing people, slash murder

30:13 victims because it's often the people closest to you that will

30:19 perpetrate these types of crimes.

30:21 Yeah. So, you know, it's, it's

30:23 understandable that Boris was interviewed in those early days

30:27 and the police had their suspicions.

30:29 The police aren't idiots. They know what they're looking

30:32 for and they know the kinds of behaviours that they're looking

30:35 for. And I feel like Boris kind of

30:39 played right into them right from the get go.

30:41 Yeah. And surely the family would have

30:43 had an A similar sentiment, although you probably would

30:48 never want to believe the worst of your family.

30:50 Members so hard because the fact of the matter is, even though

30:53 you're thinking it and going Oh my God, I think he would have

30:55 done it. The cops have got to still build

30:57 their case. Even though you think that that

30:59 that's you're like you're on the money and you're like, he

31:01 definitely did it. You've got to have the evidence

31:04 to actually get him to trial. But if you think about like,

31:08 Karen's family and you think, OK, her sister, her auntie,

31:12 whatever, you wouldn't want to believe that her husband had

31:17 done that to her because that's just so close and so difficult.

31:21 And that would blow, I mean. The fact that.

31:25 Karen was missing and at this point presumed deceased.

31:30 Well, I mean, that's the thing they're first grappling with,

31:32 isn't it? It's that first idea of hey,

31:33 this isn't looking good, that she's gonna turn up alive.

31:36 For that then to, for you then to be like, Oh my God, this is

31:41 potentially at the hand of our family member.

31:44 Yeah. The husband that she's brought

31:45 into our family. Yeah, that would be.

31:48 Oh my God. I can't even imagine.

31:50 I can't even. No, no.

31:54 Yeah, it's. I think that it was about this

31:58 point, though, where Vasco inserts him into himself, into

32:04 this, which is Boris's brother. Vasco Ristevski comes out at

32:09 this point and says, oh, it's all right, people, it's OK,

32:12 everyone, it's all right. She's alive.

32:15 She's just in China. She's she's got no self a fake

32:19 passport. So don't worry about it.

32:20 Don't worry about it. It's cool.

32:21 Like the fact that she hasn't used her actual passport.

32:23 Don't worry. No, because it's a fake one.

32:26 She's just living it up in China.

32:28 Yeah, 'cause I mean, I know that I'd be able to go and get a fake

32:30 passport tomorrow. What, Like, Nope, Nope.

32:34 Not everyone knows how to do that, I don't think.

32:35 But. Yeah, Vasco, that's just, I

32:37 mean, most people don't know how or where or wouldn't literally

32:41 wouldn't do that. No.

32:44 So the fact that for him that was like, that's an easy 10 know

32:47 exactly what's happened. So she's.

32:48 Just all. Good babes.

32:50 I'm supposed to try her on a on a fake passport.

32:54 He's quite the character. He is, but he comes, he comes

32:56 back into the the picture a little bit later on with some

32:59 interesting stuff too, so. Yeah, just, yeah, just real

33:02 quick, just real quick on his little fake passport.

33:05 Oh, yeah, the police obviously looked into it.

33:09 There was literally nothing to suggest that that had happened.

33:13 No, she'd also never used a cent of money out of there.

33:16 She'd withdrawn no money, no cash from their account.

33:20 She'd used no credit card, no bank card.

33:23 She hadn't used her Medicare card.

33:24 So she hadn't been to a doctor, she hadn't attended a hospital,

33:29 nothing. There was no digital footprint

33:32 for this woman other than. The mobile phone tracking, yeah.

33:38 So that was where. So at this point, they'd sort of

33:40 worked that the mobile phone had been pinging off of a tower

33:45 towards the Mastodon Mount Mastodon.

33:48 Yeah. So this was along the colder

33:50 freeway and it had sort of that they were able to track Boris

33:55 and Karen's phones going a certain distance up the colder

33:59 freeway towards the Mastodon Ranges.

34:02 Yeah, and Boris's phone was turned off in about 2425 minutes

34:06 into that trip. That's right.

34:07 But Karen's phone stayed on for longer.

34:09 It was turned off eventually. About two hours, right?

34:12 Yeah, yeah. So they were basically, they

34:15 knew that Boris was either had either been with Karen on this

34:20 trip or you know that. But the phone was definitely in,

34:23 you know, in that trip. So I think I'm trying to

34:26 remember when they released, it was a bit further on when they

34:28 released that footage of the car.

34:30 I remember it being on the news really predominantly where they

34:34 got some CCTV footage as well of the the black Mercedes driving

34:39 along New Digger's Rest I think it was.

34:41 Yeah, it was New Digger's Rest. They actually didn't release

34:44 that footage until after her body was found in 2017.

34:49 In Feb of 2017 so. They were hunting for anything

34:53 like which because they were following the route of like

34:55 obviously like thinking, OK, this is where the mobile phones

34:57 are kind of pinging from towers. They can only pick up so much,

35:00 you know, information in terms of where the that they actually

35:04 are. It's only a direction that

35:05 they're heading really. Mm Hmm.

35:06 So I guess then they would have been hunting every CCTV with

35:09 the, you know, on all the roads and things to try and find, see

35:11 if they can spot a car that looks familiar.

35:14 But yeah. I wonder what the difference is

35:16 between 2017 CCTV slash dash cams and 2024.

35:22 I feel like every car on the road now has a dash Cam.

35:24 Yeah, I think there's a lot more again now than they would have

35:27 been then. Yeah, for sure.

35:28 And it's we're not that far removed from it.

35:31 It's what is it, seven years? Yeah, it's not that that long

35:33 ago, but I think you'd still find there'd been increased for

35:35 sure and even just the quality of the video that you'd get.

35:39 Exactly. I just feel like they'd be the

35:41 only thing that might have hindered it was the passage of

35:44 time. Yeah.

35:45 So like, we've got dash cams in our cars and I think there's

35:50 like a rolling 48 hours or something.

35:53 Or maybe, maybe a rolling 96 hours actually, but then it just

35:59 records over. Over the same.

36:01 Yeah, it doesn't. Go to the cloud kind of thing or

36:02 anything. I don't.

36:04 Yeah. Pay extra, maybe.

36:05 Yeah, maybe. I don't think so.

36:06 So like, we've got it for if, you know, we're in an accident

36:09 or someone hits that car or something, you can press a

36:11 button. If you press a button on it,

36:13 it'll record. Record it.

36:15 Yeah, right. That forever, yeah.

36:18 But so, you know, maybe timing would have played a part in this

36:21 if if there were more dash cams, if there were dash cams around

36:24 potentially. Yeah, maybe, but.

36:26 The fact that they were able to get this CCTV many many months

36:30 later makes me think that they probably had it a lot earlier

36:33 than. I think so.

36:34 I think that they were what? They then.

36:35 Releasing things when it was suited to them to get the

36:38 information they needed for sure.

36:40 Yeah. So basically they started

36:41 looking and actually started like doing full searches of

36:45 areas in that northern N region sort of to learn valley started

36:49 looking bushland. They actually drained some dams

36:53 and scoured all the bushland and grasslands in a particular area

36:56 where they thought maybe could be a potential area for her

36:59 body. However, it wasn't until

37:02 February 20th, 2017 so that they actually found Karen's body.

37:09 There were a couple of guys working out in the Mount Macedon

37:13 region. Yep, couple of brothers they

37:15 were, they were tapping a pine tree or something like that,

37:18 doing something like about out in the in the in the area and

37:20 kind of research. Or something called.

37:22 They were. They were.

37:24 They were horticultural. Yeah, people, I.

37:26 Don't know, like doing stuff with trees?

37:30 They were, they were sort of more off the beaten track than,

37:33 yes, a normal day Walker, sort of, you know, a day hiker.

37:37 Yeah, the city might be. That's it, Yeah.

37:40 And so they were actually, they was got, they got this waft of a

37:43 smell, which was like, what the hell is that?

37:46 Like, you know, And so they started looking around to sort

37:47 of see what this smell was and unfortunately came across some

37:52 remains that were sort of poking out of the ground near these

37:55 trees that were laying 2 trees that sort of fallen near each

37:58 other and creating this kind of V shape.

38:01 And there was a skull, I believe, and a foot that was

38:05 sort of coming out of the ground, which obviously, you

38:07 know, animals had sort of disrupted the scene a little bit

38:09 as well. And so yeah, they called the

38:12 police in pretty quickly, took an extra day, obviously to then

38:16 actually confirm that unfortunately that they it was

38:19 the remains of Karen Restevsky found in Mount Macedon.

38:22 Her body was incredibly decomposed at the time, so I

38:26 think it was eight months following her disappearance that

38:29 her body was found. So it had been out in, you know,

38:34 sort of over summer. Animals had certainly played a

38:39 part in disturbing the remains, and when the autopsy was done,

38:47 her body was so badly decomposed that they were actually unable

38:52 to establish A cause of death. So they looked at whether or not

38:57 she was potentially strangled or shot or stabbed or, you know,

39:01 lots of, lots of. Head injury or something or

39:03 yeah. But nothing was conclusive.

39:07 So I guess the the police at the time had sort of been putting

39:14 together a narrative of what they thought had happened on the

39:17 day and the inference from them was that an altercation had

39:23 happened in the home following an argument about the money.

39:26 They kind of thought that that was probably very likely, and

39:32 something had come about that meant Karen met an untimely end.

39:37 So there were a couple of different ways they sort of

39:40 thought that might have happened.

39:42 They thought maybe Boris had pushed her and she'd fallen and

39:45 hit her head on something and that had that had caused her

39:48 death or that he'd actually strangled her.

39:52 Yeah. The police forensically

39:54 investigated the house. At the point that they'd found

39:58 Karen's body, they were able to obtain a a warrant to search

40:04 lots and lots of different things in the house.

40:06 So not only looking for forensic evidence, but they were also

40:09 able to seize laptops and other digital devices.

40:13 They were. They basically tore the house

40:15 apart and checked everything. They did not find any blood or

40:20 any microscopic particles of any kind in terms of DNA in that

40:24 house. So I think at that point the

40:26 police were pretty satisfied that Boris had probably

40:32 strangled her. Now we know because we're true

40:36 crime buffs or true crime best two crime besties, that

40:40 generally speaking, if somebody has been strangled, their hyoid

40:44 bone has been damaged. Yeah, and that was certainly

40:49 looked at upon autopsy. But her hyoid bone had been like

40:53 removed or like it had. Been dislodged, yeah.

40:56 But yeah, they just couldn't rule out whether or not that had

40:58 happened during due to like animals in the area or, yeah, or

41:02 whether that had happened in, you know, in the in, Yeah

41:06 process. To this day, Boris hasn't come

41:09 forward with how Karen's murder happened, so we actually don't

41:15 know her. Her autopsy report to this day

41:19 states that her cause of death is unknown or it's it's.

41:24 What do they do? But as a foul play of sorts.

41:28 But yeah. But it's yeah.

41:30 There was no no conclusive evidence to support to support A

41:34 cause of death. Yeah, So in amongst all of this

41:37 of, you know, Karen's body being found and also at that time,

41:41 pretty much pretty soon after that, the cops really ramped up

41:44 their focus on Boris. And lo and behold, at this

41:50 point, his step his his son Karen's stepson Anthony Ricard,

41:56 steps into the picture and out of nowhere decides to throw a

42:01 spanner in the works and says, well, Karen was and I were

42:06 having an affair like. We were doing it.

42:09 Yeah, yeah, since I was living with them when I was a teenager.

42:12 We were having an affair and our plan was always to run off

42:15 together when she was 21, when when Sarah was 21.

42:19 Yep. And and that this was, you know,

42:22 all because of the relationship between him and and Karen, that

42:26 that's probably why this happened to her.

42:29 Now there is literally 0 evidence, Yeah, every single

42:34 person, including Boris, yeah, including Sarah, every single

42:38 person who is involved in this story says that that is

42:43 absolutely, unequivocally not true.

42:48 These guys. Are fucking fruit.

42:50 Oh, he's a quite an interesting character.

42:52 I mean, he's clearly had an interesting childhood by the

42:55 sounds of things. Yeah, I mean, when it even got

42:58 to court with this case. Like he was meant to give

43:01 evidence at the at the court hearing.

43:04 His house was raided the day before.

43:07 He was refusing to give evidence at the trial, but he was

43:11 actually being the house has been raided for actually for

43:13 other reasons. He was arrested for hiding from

43:16 the police to avoid to give evidence but also for drug

43:20 charges as well as that as other things.

43:23 So he clearly had a bit of a rap sheet of his own and a bit bit

43:27 odd. He was just a bit odd.

43:30 Incredibly odd. Yeah, yeah.

43:33 He, I mean, he ended up, did he go to prison?

43:35 Yeah. Yeah.

43:36 So, you know, he had his own shit going on and he obviously

43:40 wasn't the most upstanding member of society.

43:43 Oh, no, because that's the thing he does.

43:44 That was right. There was also there was the

43:46 drugs that he was being he he there was a warrant out for his

43:50 arrest 1st and drugs as well as a breach of an Ivo as well.

43:53 So that's right. Or you can throw him in jail

43:56 and. Yeah, so clearly apple don't

43:58 fall far too fall far from the tree.

44:00 Unfortunately, I don't think really, to be honest.

44:03 So, yeah, he was an interesting character.

44:05 My favorite part about him, though, when he came into this

44:07 story was that he was determined.

44:09 He he was like, you know, that his dad did this, which is not

44:12 often that you have the kid coming out, you know, going.

44:13 It's my dad. He did completely the opposite.

44:16 Dad did not do. This No, yeah.

44:19 So, yeah. So Anthony came out and he said,

44:20 oh, I knew that he did it like as soon as I saw him when that

44:22 first media release, right? He goes, I saw it in his eyes,

44:26 one eye. Shitty himself and the other

44:28 one, the little like a little Terminator.

44:30 I knew he did it. When I shitting himself.

44:35 The other one, like the little Terminator?

44:38 Oh. Mate, mate.

44:41 OK. Yeah, So interesting character

44:44 just to throw in there at that point when everyone's reeling

44:47 from stuff. So gotta love that.

44:49 Yeah. So then at this point,

44:51 obviously, yeah, they started ramping up looking at Boris, but

44:54 they get to the point of they get to have a funeral for Karen,

44:59 which I just think that this is utterly gross.

45:01 Oh, it's. So gross.

45:03 Boris was obviously he still wasn't arrested or anything.

45:06 It was without just getting closer and closer to getting

45:08 him, but he hadn't been arrested yet.

45:11 So he was at the funeral and he carried her.

45:15 He was one of the pallbearers for her coffin, carried it out

45:18 of the church. And he was just filmed by, I

45:22 mean, obviously media were further far away, but from a

45:25 distance, they filmed him just putting on this show of, you

45:30 know, emotion. He was the grieving husband, he

45:33 was bawling his eyes out. He was a pallbearer at the

45:36 front, so he was one of the front on one.

45:39 Side and her. Brother on the other and her

45:42 brother says now that he knew at that point that Boris had done

45:45 it and he had to go along with it because at that point he

45:50 hadn't been arrested. Can you imagine?

45:55 Oh, that'd be awful. I can't even like I just.

45:58 That would just be dreadful. Just even to this day that would

46:01 give you the absolute shits that he was there grieving.

46:05 Like you don't get the right. To grieve.

46:08 He wasn't grieving, no, he was just putting it on for show.

46:11 And Sarah bought it hook, line and sinker.

46:14 Their daughter, she believed her dad from, well, obviously from

46:19 the minute she asked him where her mum was on the day that she

46:23 went missing. It's, it's pretty, pretty

46:27 horrific About coming up to a year after Karen's

46:35 disappearance, Vasco makes another little appearance in

46:39 this story. Do you know about this?

46:42 Yelp. Oh, this is this is like my

46:45 favorite. So what was it a Channel 7 show?

46:49 Was it Channel 9? Can't.

46:50 Remember now might have been, I think it was Channel 9, I think

46:52 it was Current Affair. Current Affair.

46:54 No, you were. It was absolutely A Current

46:55 affair. Yeah, yeah, A Current affair.

46:58 We're doing a story like sort of updating everyone on what had

47:01 been going on and whatever. And so they were out at the site

47:04 where Karen's body was found with an expert, the gorgeous.

47:09 Oh my God. Charlie Bezina, now he's an ex

47:13 homicide detective with Victoria Police and he is Meg and I love

47:19 him, but I have to say Meg, this is a bit of a tangent.

47:22 I wanna go for. I love a tangent.

47:24 My mum, My mum loves him more than we do.

47:26 No, she loves Ron. No.

47:28 Well, OK, So no. I was telling mum about this

47:31 case and I was telling her that, you know, Charlie makes a bit of

47:34 an appearance in this in this episode when I was researching.

47:38 I'm like, don't worry, I'll mention him.

47:39 She's like, good. And I was like, oh, but I know

47:43 he's, you know, he's not your favorite.

47:45 Ron's your favorite. Yeah.

47:47 Ron Iddles our our other amazing esteemed ex Victorian homicide

47:53 detective. And she's like, actually, no, I

47:58 actually feel like she's like, I think, I think Charlie,

48:01 Charlie's my number one. No, he can't be.

48:04 I know. I've seen her.

48:06 Drool over Ron like. But she also, like she's pretty,

48:09 goes a bit weak at the knees for Charlie too.

48:12 No, but see, no, the Ron thing makes sense to me entirely.

48:14 Like whereas Charlie for me doesn't make as much sense

48:16 because Ron looks like your dad. He does he Ron actually does

48:20 look like my dad. There's a real resemblance

48:22 there. So I'm, I'm shocked, Lynn, I'm

48:24 shocked. But there you go.

48:26 Sorry that. Well, I can't argue with her

48:28 because I I think Charlie was in is amazing too.

48:30 But they're both. Ron all the way, Yeah.

48:34 We've seen them both talk live and they are both incredible

48:38 human beings and thank God we had them in Victoria poll

48:41 because their expertise is certainly informed and you know,

48:45 Ron's conviction rate is like insane amazing.

48:49 He They are incredible detectives and they still

48:53 consult on cases to this day. Which is what?

48:55 What he was out there. Charlie was out there doing.

48:57 So he. Was, you know, doing a media

48:58 piece about Karen's, you know, what was upcoming to be the

49:05 anniversary of Karen's disappearance.

49:07 And while they're there, who pops up?

49:11 Our mate. Our mate Vasco walks.

49:14 Out of the Bush. Walks out of the Bush while

49:16 they're filming and he is absolutely caught unaware.

49:19 Now what the fuck was he doing in the Bush on a random day?

49:26 Not on the actual anniversary. It was a few weeks before, Yeah,

49:30 what was he doing out there? He.

49:32 Shot himself. I told that much.

49:33 That's all the video the. Footage of it is so freaking

49:36 goal. Yeah, that guy.

49:37 I mean, what on earth? The only.

49:40 I don't even know if I'm gonna wrap my head around it in this

49:42 way, but to me, this screams guilt from Boris.

49:45 Even in that to me, he's confessed to his brother what

49:47 he's done. Yep.

49:48 And the brothers potentially headed out there because this is

49:51 where Charlie's damn good at what he does.

49:54 But the he's gone out there, I reckon to just check if there's

49:58 anything out, any other evidence left that will, that cops could

50:01 find to link his brother to this.

50:04 Because Charlie said quoted on the on the media thing saying

50:08 that he could see that's, that there'd been somebody digging

50:12 around the area and he wouldn't, couldn't completely rule out

50:15 that it wasn't animals. But he could certainly see that

50:18 there'd been some scratchings around the areas and some

50:21 digging happening in the vicinity of where her body had

50:25 been found. So it's just to me, he was

50:28 Charlie Bezina was on to it. And he reckons that I think he

50:32 really does think that Vasco was out there double checking to

50:36 make sure there wasn't something else that could be found to link

50:38 his brother up to. This.

50:39 So do you think Vasco was involved?

50:41 I don't know about involved, but certainly aware and yeah, and I

50:48 think I reckon his brother probably confessed to him what

50:50 happened. I think his brother was trying

50:52 to, you know, though, he was thinking he'd go and protect his

50:55 brother and go and check the scene.

50:57 Yeah, but but why? Like to me it just seemed so

51:01 bizarre that he did it like on that day as in it's just it was

51:06 a random day there was. Nothing.

51:07 The media that just happened to be out there on that.

51:09 Day, there was nothing. It wasn't the anniversary date,

51:13 but Even so, it was. Well, you just steer clear like,

51:16 I don't know. Absolutely I.

51:18 Just can't. But you know what they say?

51:20 They say that often murderers who dispose of bodies or dispose

51:25 of evidence will go back and visit the site.

51:28 Yeah. So that's.

51:30 That's creepiest. That's, I don't know what the

51:32 psychology is behind that, but it's like, is it that they're

51:34 checking to make sure everything's just so are they?

51:38 Is it like a form? Of body wasn't there anymore.

51:40 No, no, it had been removed, obviously.

51:43 Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah.

51:45 But yeah, but they were closing in pretty good on Boris with, I

51:48 mean, this is sort of, I mean, that doesn't say anything that

51:51 they can get on him in terms of evidence, I don't think, but.

51:53 No, but it certainly paints. It paints a picture.

51:55 Just picture. However, something else that was

51:57 very strong evidence that they were able to bring to trial, it

52:01 was something that was happened, happened a few months after her

52:04 body was found. They didn't release the exact

52:07 location. Whereas by the time Vasco did go

52:09 out, he knew where the exact location was.

52:12 But to the public, it had not been released exactly where this

52:15 location was. And a witness had come forward

52:21 who had seen a black Mercedes in a particular location and a man

52:27 standing next to that vehicle holding a shovel.

52:31 Yeah. Who fitted a description of

52:35 Boris? So the fact that this guy was

52:38 able to pinpoint a location that was very close to where the body

52:41 was eventually was found, but without knowing where that

52:44 location was at that point. This was a very strong witness

52:48 that they were able to then pretty much this was the the

52:51 nail in the coffin for for Boris that they were like, this is

52:54 pretty big that we can go in and and nab him.

52:57 Yeah. The other bit of evidence that

52:59 they had found also was when they do the search of the house,

53:02 they did find on iPad some pretty suspicious searches that

53:06 had been taken on there, including how police trace

53:10 phones, how to delete mobile phone data and how to police

53:13 detect blood. So, yeah, he'd been someone,

53:17 someone in the house, which I guess could have been Sarah.

53:21 Also. Somebody was doing some searches

53:22 on that iPad in that house. So those sort of bits of

53:25 evidence were enough for the cops to, I think at that point,

53:29 go in and arrest Boris. I think that was 10 months after

53:35 they had found the body. Is that about right?

53:37 Yeah. So I guess it's worth noting

53:40 that so. Boris was actually.

53:41 Arrested on the 13th of December in 2017 and charged with murder.

53:49 He appeared that morning, so he was arrested at like 7:00 in the

53:53 morning. He appeared that morning at

53:55 10:00 at the Melbourne Magistrates Court and he entered

53:59 a plea of not guilty. He was remanded in custody then

54:03 with a court date of April the 18th set.

54:08 So this is what 2017 that happened late 2017, 2018 comes

54:17 along and on the 17th of July there's a two week committal

54:22 hearing to decide whether the murder charge will stick or not.

54:26 And this is when all of the financial stuff came out.

54:28 So I believe they'd sent the iPad and the laptop over to the

54:33 States for forensic analysis like so they could look, they

54:38 had a forensic accountant look into exactly where the book

54:41 stood because of course they couldn't get a like any solid

54:46 picture from Boris as to where things were.

54:48 And this is where the that over $1 million worth of debt was

54:52 like debt in terms of the business and their personal

54:55 debts combined was revealed. So at that point, like, you

55:00 know, the police thought, well, there's also a financial motive

55:02 potentially here. Yeah.

55:05 On the 3rd of August he was committed to stand trial for

55:08 murder and on the 7th of August they set that trial date for

55:13 March of 2019. And at the point the justice

55:18 said that the the the court hearing, the criminal hearing

55:22 would probably last about four to five weeks.

55:25 Can you imagine how taxing that would be?

55:27 On Sarah. Oh, God, yeah.

55:30 Like, I mean, I, I it's hard because I have such an opinion

55:35 on where she heads at. And because I can't, I can't

55:39 understand her thinking. Yeah.

55:42 So we can get to that. A little bit more maybe after

55:44 this, because I think that warrants a conversation in and

55:47 of itself. Yeah.

55:48 Yeah. On the 13th of March of the

55:51 following year, the justice ruled that post offence conduct

56:00 could not be used to prove murderous intent.

56:05 So the justice was Christopher Beale.

56:07 He was very measured in his responses, and he sounds like

56:11 he's an incredible judge. And he basically said that

56:18 Boris's behavior after Karen's murder, now known to be murder,

56:26 cannot be used as evidence against him in a trial.

56:32 But that's kind of a huge amount of the prosecution's case.

56:38 Yeah, except for the witness. They of course they had, but

56:42 yeah. They had the.

56:43 Witness, they obviously had her body, which didn't actually show

56:48 that much in terms of evidence aside from the fact that her

56:51 body was obviously found in an area where his mobile phone had

56:56 been found. And then as you said, with that

56:57 witness with his car and the shovel and the person that, you

57:01 know, they've described who, you know, couldn't, almost couldn't

57:04 not be borrowed. Yeah.

57:06 But yeah, I think that was a bit of a blow for.

57:11 The DPP, I think so. I think their evidence was

57:14 somewhat, it was too circumstantial.

57:16 It was, you know, there was a little bit of a little bit of

57:20 leniency there. I guess that could be, you know,

57:24 there could be a shadow of doubt, I guess.

57:25 Yeah, I think there's no reason that a circumstantial case can't

57:29 win, no, in terms of of prosecution, but it is more

57:34 difficult and it yeah, it it's certainly something that would

57:38 have been taken into consideration.

57:40 So I think at this point a manslaughter charge was offered

57:45 to Boris and he declined to that originally.

57:49 But then was it two or three days?

57:51 It was pretty close. It was very close.

57:52 Yeah. I think he's two days before.

57:54 The days, yeah, before we was set to go to trial.

57:56 He. He.

57:58 Backflipped. Yeah.

57:59 Backs to say guilty to manslaughter yeah, which is it

58:04 was interesting in itself because up until that point he'd

58:06 been absolutely declaring that he was an innocent man and had

58:10 no he still. Says he's not guilty.

58:11 He's just basically saying, well, I see there's some

58:14 evidence against me and I think I'd be convicted if it went to

58:17 trial. Yeah, which is what he's sort of

58:19 pretty much with all like holds to this day that.

58:21 Yeah, but he's, yeah, he's pled guilty to manslaughter and then

58:26 the sentence. Would you plead guilty to

58:28 manslaughter if you? Had there's no way in hell if I

58:29 hadn't done it, why would you do that freaking way?

58:31 No, no, I'd. I'd fight it to.

58:34 The fight to death, Absolutely. No.

58:37 So I mean, I, yeah, I think that the, I think the evidence was

58:41 reasonable enough that it was, it was quite possible that he

58:43 would have been convicted of that.

58:46 So I think that, yeah, he's, he's basically, I think his

58:50 lawyers given him the, you know, duty.

58:52 This is your only way out here. So yeah, he's he's taken the

58:57 manslaughter and then sentencing has occurred, which was very

59:01 interesting. So when we get to sentencing,

59:05 obviously victim impact statements usually get read.

59:09 And obviously there was, you know, there was her brother and

59:13 her sister, her her auntie, all these sorts of people who gave

59:16 victim impact statements. And so did, yeah, but so did

59:19 Sarah. And Sarah's victim impact

59:22 statement was basic was a character reference for her

59:25 father rather than really a victim impact statement of about

59:28 her mum. There was there was no mention

59:30 really of her mum or the impact of the loss of her mum.

59:33 Now this is a little, this is a little, I say little, but she's

59:36 a 21 year old woman. Yep, she's got her entire life

59:40 ahead of her. She has potentially a wedding or

59:46 potentially children, other things that, you know, she would

59:50 want her mum around for because as she states, they were

59:53 incredibly close. The impact of that was not noted

1:00:01 to the court and it wasn't something that, yeah, she

1:00:06 brought put forward and. Her.

1:00:09 Impact statement or character reference as it turned out to

1:00:12 be, would have carried the most weight.

1:00:15 She was the most impacted by this, absolutely.

1:00:18 So she basically said in her in her character reference how

1:00:24 amazing her dad is, how he's. Having father misses his, misses

1:00:29 her mom. Loved, loves, loves her mom.

1:00:33 And she believes it. She fully, fully believes it

1:00:36 now. Yeah, please go and watch the 60

1:00:40 Minutes interview with Liz Hayes.

1:00:42 Love Liz Hayes. It's on YouTube.

1:00:46 Go and have a look at it, because this episode I think is

1:00:51 incredibly telling about Sarah's state of mind and her position

1:00:59 in all of this and how well Boris is basically controlling

1:01:04 her from prison. Yep, this is a, it's a clear

1:01:07 case of coercive control. And if you don't know what that

1:01:11 is and or how to spot it, watch that interview because that is

1:01:15 the result of coercion control 100%, no question in my mind.

1:01:20 No, but just before we get to that, so the sentencing, yeah,

1:01:24 we'll, we'll jump, we'll go back and go into that bit more.

1:01:26 But the sentencing occurred. So that so basically based on

1:01:30 her character reference for her dad and so much weight was put

1:01:33 on that by the judge. He read out his statement at the

1:01:37 end of the which they have to do like to give the sentence.

1:01:39 He has to read a hell of a lot to justify why he's giving the

1:01:42 sentence that he's giving. And in that he, you know, he

1:01:45 spoke about the horrific stuff that Boris has done and how the

1:01:48 fact that he hasn't still come forward if he's, you know,

1:01:51 saying he's guilty, but he hasn't actually told us what

1:01:53 happened, you know, and all that.

1:01:55 And it was very measured, very, but also very damning that what

1:01:58 he said. And then he got to the end of

1:02:00 that to say what the actual sentence was and he based that

1:02:04 and weighted very heavily what Sarah said and gave him all of

1:02:09 nine years maximum with six years with parole, which is

1:02:13 just. Atrocious. 6 years non parole.

1:02:15 Six years non parole. Sorry.

1:02:16 Yeah. So he, I mean, it could have

1:02:18 been a maximum of 20 years. So nine years is just pitiful.

1:02:23 And the fact is that that becomes case law.

1:02:26 So basically there's an if there's another case of, you

1:02:29 know, an intimate partner murdering his wife or girlfriend

1:02:33 or something, then that this, this can then be brought forward

1:02:37 as the standard, the precedent, you know, and so that can then

1:02:40 be used. And then all of a sudden, all of

1:02:42 those sorts of cases start getting less and less time for

1:02:46 these sentences. It's disgusting.

1:02:48 It's really disgusting. There was some revolting shit on

1:02:51 social media about this too. Where these hideous men were

1:02:55 writing things like, Oh well, if I'm only going to get six years,

1:02:59 I might as well knock her off now.

1:03:00 Yeah, yeah. And I'll be out in six years or

1:03:03 whatever. It's just disgusting and it's

1:03:05 not funny and it's there is nothing OK about making.

1:03:09 I'm not even going to say jokes, but they think it's.

1:03:11 Funny. I don't know.

1:03:12 No. It's it's absolutely horrible.

1:03:16 Yeah. So the prosecution actually

1:03:21 appealed the sentence and it went to the appellate court and

1:03:25 they were able to add on. Was it 4?

1:03:29 Additional years, so ended up still woefully inadequate.

1:03:32 Absolutely. So yeah.

1:03:33 But so 10 years non parole, 13 as a maximum.

1:03:35 So at this stage, he's looking at being released in 2027 at the

1:03:39 age of 63. I mean, so he's.

1:03:42 Still got a lot of life ahead of him. 63 or man, I mean, have you

1:03:44 come out and still, you know, do this to another woman, you know,

1:03:48 have another partner, have another child.

1:03:49 Even at 63, I wouldn't put it past him.

1:03:52 You know, who knows he's he's still going to come out as a

1:03:55 fairly young man. And I really, I don't know.

1:03:57 I think that's pretty, pretty poor for her life and what has

1:04:02 been taken from her and what has been taken from Sarah, as much

1:04:05 as she doesn't know that and how to think and believe any of

1:04:09 things going on, it's just disgusting.

1:04:13 Oh it's it's horrible, yeah. Should we get into get into that

1:04:19 now about the Sarah's side of. Things.

1:04:21 I think so. I was, you know, we've had,

1:04:25 we've had this discussion about, about coercive control and the

1:04:29 way that it's incredibly impactful and you've got some

1:04:32 really good insights. And I know you've got, you've

1:04:35 got some stuff that you want to say about this.

1:04:38 Before we get into sort of the nitty gritty of it.

1:04:40 I think it's really worth noting that if any of the things that

1:04:44 we're about to discuss are impacting you in any way, there

1:04:49 are a lot of resources available.

1:04:51 So please reach out. So in Australia, there's 1800

1:04:55 Respect, which you can call it anytime.

1:04:58 We've got Orange Door, which you can go to for, for resources as

1:05:04 well. And we can leave those links in

1:05:05 our show notes too. But please know that if this is

1:05:09 something, if you identify with any of the things that we're

1:05:11 about to discuss, you know, please know that there are

1:05:17 organizations that you can reach out to to support you through

1:05:20 this in the immediate instance and longer term too.

1:05:25 Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

1:05:29 So look, that interview with Sarah is absolutely

1:05:35 heartbreaking. There's not no other way to look

1:05:38 at it. I mean, you watch her, she's a

1:05:41 shell of a person. I mean, I actually noted when I

1:05:44 was watching it that she's 24 in that interview and she appears

1:05:49 very immature. And again, that's that result of

1:05:52 that coercion and control, you know, that he has made her not

1:05:57 grow enough like and become. I mean, I know I know other

1:06:00 women who friends of mine who have lost parents, you know, at

1:06:03 young ages, not in these sorts of circumstances, yes, but you

1:06:07 know, it makes them grow up a lot faster because they've lost

1:06:10 that parent. They, you know, step into those

1:06:11 roles and those adult roles, you know, very easily and quickly.

1:06:14 She hasn't done that. She seems still very quite

1:06:17 immature. She.

1:06:18 Talks to her dad in prison twice a day.

1:06:21 Yeah. She visits him, I think, weekly.

1:06:24 Yeah. She's still very much beholden

1:06:27 to him. And in the interview with Liz

1:06:31 Hayes, she's asked a lot of direct questions about whether

1:06:34 she thinks things have happened or like what she thinks has

1:06:38 happened or things about her dad being involved in the murder of

1:06:41 her mum. And she never answers a question

1:06:44 directly. I feel like you can really tell.

1:06:47 She's been coached in what to say.

1:06:48 And Liz Hayes absolutely thinks the same thing.

1:06:50 You can tell by the way she sort of pursues the questions and

1:06:55 also by the fact that she gets that expert to review some of

1:07:00 the interviews. Yeah, Laura Richards, who views

1:07:03 it. Yeah, she's interesting.

1:07:04 She's. Awesome.

1:07:05 Yeah, so she's a like a behaviourist.

1:07:08 She profiles and things like that.

1:07:10 She's but she's worked on a lot of DV cases.

1:07:13 She was very impressive in her work that she's done.

1:07:16 And she's watched this case out of interest more than anything

1:07:20 from the get go. It's in her field.

1:07:22 But she watched that interview that Liz Hayes did back with

1:07:26 her. And something that really stood

1:07:28 out was how Sarah described her dad as charismatic.

1:07:32 And I just can't with that because charismatic traits are

1:07:39 used to manipulate people. That's not a positive trait to

1:07:41 have. Like, you know, if you're

1:07:44 charming someone, you're manipulating them, you are

1:07:48 putting a spell over them. And, like, who would describe

1:07:52 their dad as charismatic? Yeah.

1:07:54 Like, there are 1000 different words I can think to describe my

1:07:58 dad. Yeah, none of them would be

1:08:00 charismatic because I know him on such a different level.

1:08:04 You might describe some, I don't know person you might meet

1:08:09 randomly and quickly. Yeah.

1:08:12 Oh yeah, they were really charismatic.

1:08:13 They sort of engaged me very quickly.

1:08:16 You don't. I don't.

1:08:17 I just don't think the word charismatic is something you

1:08:19 would use to describe somebody you know really well.

1:08:22 Yeah, same. I, I really, I just find that

1:08:25 really interesting. She's, she was, she found that

1:08:28 really wrong, the way that that came across.

1:08:32 But the fact that she she doesn't actually see that her

1:08:36 dad has taken her mum away from her and that she should be the

1:08:40 voice for her mum and now, but what Boris has done is remove

1:08:44 that from her life. So I mean, I worry that when

1:08:48 Boris comes out of jail and he's in her life and physically as

1:08:51 well as, you know, in these, you know, over the phones and things

1:08:55 like that, she's communicating with him when she's actually

1:08:57 physically there as well. That her mum becomes non

1:09:00 existent in her life entirely because she's not allowed, won't

1:09:03 be allowed to speak about her. Like it would be so awkward to

1:09:06 discuss with her murderer you know, about nice things about

1:09:10 her. Mum, I feel like they've never

1:09:12 discussed it. Like even early on they they

1:09:16 just don't talk about her. No, it's really odd.

1:09:20 And I they. Just kind of pretended like it

1:09:22 didn't happen or something, like it's horrible.

1:09:25 Yeah, I mean, I found that interview to watch was so

1:09:27 frustrating. I mean, I was yelling at the

1:09:29 scream. Or just shake her and just go

1:09:31 sweetheart, like you're, it's OK.

1:09:33 You're allowed to be angry at your dad and you're allowed to

1:09:36 have emotions and you know and want your mum back.

1:09:40 But is she? She's not.

1:09:42 She's not. No, she's.

1:09:43 Not allowed. She he has got her so under his

1:09:47 spell that she is just toeing the party line.

1:09:51 She is spreading all the shit that he sprouts to her.

1:09:55 She's like a little parrot fit for him, I think because

1:09:58 absolutely she actually and look, she's probably protecting

1:10:02 herself in a certain way as well.

1:10:04 Yeah. But if she took a minute and,

1:10:07 or, you know, a bit of time and, and really reflected on what

1:10:10 happened, she's a really intelligent girl.

1:10:13 There's, you know, I'm sure she would come to the conclusion

1:10:17 and, and what has now been proven to be and, you know, he's

1:10:21 been convicted of her manslaughter.

1:10:23 So we know he killed her. She would surely come to the

1:10:26 same conclusion. It's like, it's like in that

1:10:28 interview, she has not allowed herself to even think about it.

1:10:32 No, she's not because, well, the fact is like when in those

1:10:35 situations, the person who's being abused, you learn I guess

1:10:39 to it's the path of least resistance.

1:10:43 So she's learnt that she needs to be on his side because being

1:10:46 not on his side, well, that gets you killed.

1:10:50 Wow. You know, so and then not that

1:10:53 she will automatically compute that and think that, but there's

1:10:57 a surface level understanding of that, that it's not safe for her

1:11:01 to stand up for herself or for her mum.

1:11:04 It's not safe. She's not safe.

1:11:08 I think unfortunately, like there's new laws here in

1:11:10 Australia now over coercive control, coercive control, but

1:11:14 but however those those laws are only for intimate partner.

1:11:19 So unfortunately still those laws haven't gone far enough

1:11:23 because this is coercive control being done to still a family

1:11:26 member. You know, it's male to female,

1:11:28 you know, father daughter, but it's not intimate partner.

1:11:31 So therefore those laws won't apply.

1:11:33 But I don't think that this man should be allowed out and

1:11:37 released to basically be in her life now, potentially causing

1:11:43 the same sorts of damage to her life that he quite clearly

1:11:45 caused for Karen. I know that there was an article

1:11:49 I was reading about how he's been moved from one jail to

1:11:51 another, and it was being queried as to why, which they

1:11:55 don't answer with those questions, why prisoners have

1:11:57 been moved. But they did allude to the fact

1:12:00 that it was most likely due to good behaviour and the fact that

1:12:06 he was, you know, being moving forward towards reform.

1:12:11 And it's like, hang on a second, this guy ain't moving even is

1:12:14 not reforming. He's not, he's not learning from

1:12:16 these things. He he still hasn't told the

1:12:19 police or anyone no what actually happened that day.

1:12:23 No, hasn't hasn't come out with that at all.

1:12:26 I mean as you were saying before, quite.

1:12:28 It's most likely this guy strangled her since there was no

1:12:32 blood found. I mean, if he was, if there was

1:12:35 an accident, wouldn't you think he would just have come forward

1:12:37 and said, right, Yeah, it's man. So.

1:12:39 Because. I pushed her.

1:12:41 Oh. My God.

1:12:42 Well, you would do that some help, but let's say worst case

1:12:45 scenario, he's done gone through the process and he's got rid of

1:12:47 her body like you know, but then, you know, you've been

1:12:49 caught. You fess up and you say, yeah, I

1:12:52 pushed her. She fell.

1:12:53 I didn't know what to do. I've I've you know, that's when

1:12:56 I went and took her body and whatever.

1:12:58 And that was the wrong thing to do.

1:12:59 But there's a somewhat a little layer of, you know, empathy that

1:13:04 you can have for that person and potentially there's, you know, a

1:13:07 possibility for reform and all those sorts of things.

1:13:10 But this guy's next level, I reckon.

1:13:12 And to me, he is someone who has come up and he has strangled

1:13:16 because that's full on intent to kill.

1:13:18 That's not now manslaughter. That is first degree murder.

1:13:23 Yeah, I so I, I strongly believe that he's actually strangled or

1:13:25 otherwise he would have admitted anything else that went on.

1:13:27 Agreed. Is awful.

1:13:31 But yeah, just getting into sort of the coercive control stuff a

1:13:33 little bit that look, the statistics are horrific here in

1:13:37 Australia. They're horrific across the

1:13:39 world. They haven't changed much over

1:13:42 the last 10 years. Basically the statistics have

1:13:44 remained pretty pretty much the same.

1:13:47 They go up and down in various places at different times, but

1:13:50 as a whole, across the whole world, they are shithouse for

1:13:53 women. Just here in Australia, 74 women

1:13:56 were killed in 2023 and by April 27th, which is the latest

1:14:01 statistic I could find for 2024, already 32 women had been

1:14:05 killed. Across the world, on average, a

1:14:09 woman is killed every 11 minutes by a family member.

1:14:13 Like that's not just, that's not every like this isn't just

1:14:16 talking about women being killed.

1:14:18 This is women killed by intimate partner or other family member.

1:14:22 So the statistics are absolutely horrific.

1:14:25 They did increase on average worldwide by about 11% over

1:14:28 COVID too, which says a lot. So the more time a woman spends

1:14:32 in her home, the more time she's in, more chance she's in danger,

1:14:36 which is just. Absolutely wrong.

1:14:37 Terrific. I know Indigenous women in

1:14:40 Australia are three times more likely to be murdered at the

1:14:42 hands of an intimate partner as well.

1:14:44 Like it's just. Yeah, yeah, minorities are even

1:14:47 more impacted in terms of these sorts of things as well, which

1:14:50 is just horrific. So just to sort of put a bit,

1:14:54 you know, we want to make sure that these things aren't don't

1:14:57 happen. We want to put a stop to them.

1:14:59 And obviously they say there's laws in Australia now around

1:15:02 coercive control as well as obviously physical abuse.

1:15:05 It can be also emotional abuse and all other aspects.

1:15:10 So if you're not sure what coercive control even is, these

1:15:13 are just 12 signs of coercive control from Relationships

1:15:16 Australia 1 being being isolated from your support system, which

1:15:21 is clearly what's happened to Sarah in this situation.

1:15:24 Monitoring your activity throughout the day, so keeping

1:15:27 track of you, which could be through devices or it could be

1:15:29 literally phone calls to you, texting you, where are you when

1:15:32 you're coming home, why aren't you home yet, Those sorts of

1:15:34 things. That is coercive control denying

1:15:37 you freedom and autonomy, which again Sarah's being denied the

1:15:41 freedom to grieve her mum and also defend her mum and be

1:15:45 pissed at the person who's taken that from her.

1:15:48 Gaslighting is horrendous. Unfortunately the word gets a

1:15:51 bit overused these days but gaslighting is horrific to

1:15:54 experience. It's basically when someone is

1:15:57 you are telling them this is what happened, explaining it to

1:15:59 them and then telling you that's not what happened, that's not

1:16:01 how it happened. It's real manipulation and it's

1:16:08 horrible. Name name calling and severe

1:16:11 severe criticism is also a coercive control limiting access

1:16:17 to money and controlling finances.

1:16:19 Financial abuse is is horrendous.

1:16:21 And with any of these you don't need to have all these 12

1:16:23 happening to you for you to be in a coercive control

1:16:26 relationship. It can be one of these and it is

1:16:29 bad enough and you need to be getting out of that relationship

1:16:35 coercing you or to take they take care of to take care of all

1:16:38 the domestic duties in the household.

1:16:40 They are not all female duties. Every, you know, household is it

1:16:45 should be a team, everyone pitching in, everyone doing what

1:16:48 they need to do in the household to take part.

1:16:51 Turning your children against you, which would just be

1:16:54 horrible. And using belittling you in

1:16:58 front of your children or weaponizing the children against

1:17:00 you. Or in particular sort of or #12

1:17:05 actually gets I jumped down to that one, sort of threatening

1:17:07 your children or your pets in front of you.

1:17:08 So basically using them as like weapons in that situation,

1:17:13 controlling aspects of your health or your body.

1:17:16 So not allowing you to get to medical attention or exercising

1:17:20 or getting the right amount of sleep that you need, you know,

1:17:22 making you get up and get to the kids earlier within the other

1:17:25 person. That's it's all not OK.

1:17:27 Making sure that you're not spending too much time in the

1:17:29 bathroom, heaven forbid, have a shower and have some time for

1:17:32 yourself in there even like whatever yeah that's controlling

1:17:36 you in that way is not OK Final one, regulating your sexual

1:17:40 relationships. So for example, demands about

1:17:42 the amount of times you engage in sex or the kinds of

1:17:45 activities that you engage in. So as I say it doesn't have to

1:17:49 be all 12, although these are just 12 signs of coercive

1:17:52 control and any of those are wrong, wrong, wrong.

1:17:56 So please call 1800 respect if you are experiencing any of

1:17:59 those or as here in Australia, if you're feeling unsafe, call

1:18:04 000. So I just want to make sure that

1:18:07 we have everyone understanding that this those sorts of

1:18:11 behaviours are not OK. And I really in this situation,

1:18:16 we don't want any more women losing their lives and the more

1:18:18 we can do to protect each other. Make sure that you call it out

1:18:21 if you see these behaviours. So if someone who stands by and

1:18:25 watches these behaviours happen is just as culpable as the

1:18:28 person who is infiltrating them. So everyone, let's look out for

1:18:33 each other. If you call it out, the person

1:18:35 experiencing it knows it's wrong too, and they can then feel

1:18:38 confident to be able to step up and leave.

1:18:41 Absolutely, absolutely. If you're not in Australia, if

1:18:46 you're one of our listeners who live internationally, you can

1:18:49 Google supports in your local in your, in your country.

1:18:55 And please seek support, find a friend, find a family member,

1:19:00 somebody who's going to help you if you need that, that support

1:19:03 and help. Or, you know, if, as Meg said,

1:19:07 if the if the situation's incredibly volatile, you'll,

1:19:10 your local police need to be there and, and assist you

1:19:14 through that. And they're getting better and

1:19:16 better at being able to spot these things too.

1:19:19 They're trained better these days so you can reach out.

1:19:22 Don't feel you can't. Yeah, absolutely.

1:19:25 That's a pretty heavy note to end it on.

1:19:28 Sorry about that. No, I think it's incredibly

1:19:30 important. Thank you so much for bringing

1:19:32 that to the podcast because I think it is incredibly important

1:19:36 and it is something that isn't spoken about openly enough, but

1:19:41 something that absolutely needs to be.

1:19:44 And the fact that, you know, we've got a little more context

1:19:48 now around what coercive control is that you can maybe spot that

1:19:52 within somebody's relationship. You might be able to have that

1:19:55 little chat with, with a girlfriend or a family member on

1:19:58 the side and say, hey, I've just noticed this.

1:20:00 Let's how can I help you? And it might not be the first

1:20:03 time you have that conversation with the person that they, they

1:20:06 reach out and ask for your help or, or accept the help that

1:20:09 you're offering, but persist with it because it's incredibly

1:20:12 important. Yeah.

1:20:15 On that note, I well. I also just wanted to add,

1:20:18 sorry, just quickly, that like, yes, Karma Stefski, I honestly

1:20:22 believe was a victim of domestic violence and quite possibly

1:20:26 coercive control. But also she was a very

1:20:28 beautiful person who was incredibly caring.

1:20:31 And that's how she needs to be remembered, even if her daughter

1:20:33 can't do it for her. She was someone who gave her

1:20:37 time and her to charity. She, you know, made clothing for

1:20:43 people who had had mastectomies during breast cancer and donated

1:20:47 them to to women to wear for special events and things.

1:20:51 So I think that she just needs to be remembered as an

1:20:53 absolutely incredible person as well.

1:20:54 So agreed. Agreed.

1:20:56 Like all accounts from everybody who knew her, she was an

1:21:02 incredible human being and you know the world is the worst

1:21:05 place without her here. For sure.

1:21:08 Yeah. All right.

1:21:10 We'll leave it at that. Absolutely.

1:21:12 Well, next week we're actually talking about Elizabeth Holmes.

1:21:16 So it's quite, quite a different, yeah, quite a

1:21:19 different type of case, but another really interesting one

1:21:23 for you. So stay tuned for that next

1:21:25 Tuesday. We release episodes every

1:21:28 Tuesday, so please come back like us in your podcasting apps

1:21:32 please, because it really helps you know, if you follow us, we

1:21:36 can get our our episodes out to more and more listeners.

1:21:42 Meg is doing an absolutely stellar job of getting us out

1:21:46 there on Tiktok. So please again, go and follow

1:21:49 us over on Tiktok and. Emma's trying to convince me to

1:21:54 do more crazy stuff on Tiktok. Tell us if you want us to or

1:21:56 not. I'm not I'm in.

1:21:58 I'm in the camp of maybe not. I wanna do like trending stuff.

1:22:05 Do the dancers. Yeah, yeah.

1:22:08 I mean, you know, yes, we'll see.

1:22:13 We'll see who wins. Go and follow us over on TikTok

1:22:15 and see who won that argument. All right.

1:22:20 Thank you so much for joining us, everyone, and we'll see you

1:22:22 next. Week, Absolutely.

1:22:22 Stay curious. Crime besties.